The Eight Deadly Sins
by LawlietLennoxLove
Summary: Because they're all sinners, yes, every one of the G8. Canada, Germany, Russia, Japan, England, France, America. Condemned as such by Christianity itself. Even innocent little Italy.
1. Sloth

**A/N: How it works, is that each member of the G8 has an appointed sin (even if they have more than just the one…which they do, actually, and don't we love them to bits for it), described by or from the point of view of another. Probably from the G8. Just so everyone there gets a turn, aww how sweet. Though I'm not sure. **

**And yes, I am aware that there are **_**seven**_** Deadly Sins, but I'll cross that bridge when it comes, keheheh….**

**Also, inspiration is as ever sorely needed. Especially which sin to appoint to which, and such. (Not to mention, I am completely stuck as to which category to put this thing under, and what rating. Ugh.)**

**Disclaimer: the Wizard of Oz isn't mine either, sadly. **_**And **_**I'm still poor as heck. (So maths **_**is**_** easy, after all.)**

The Eight Deadly Sins

Sloth

It's their day off; just for today, their leaders would take over in all those long, tedious meetings where everyone sat behind flat, monochrome slabs of wood, stiff as boards in starched collars and every one of them with the same Plaster-of-Paris cast for a face. Germany was no different: it was his _duty_ to sit there, prim and severe, like the good little nation he was. When Japan visited, which wasn't actually all that often (they had a mutual understanding: Germany would grapple with Europe and Japan would fell Asia, and each would keep their noses in their own little allotments), they were invariably placed in adjoining seats, mostly for the sake of the cameras. The ones behind all those walled, dead eyes. Beware the critics, lest they find a fault in the film.

Times like that, was when Germany would sometimes slide his eyes out to the side, surreptitiously, to glance at Japan's profile. Only ever that, because with his irreproachable iron-rod posture (but fittingly demure, the meetings were after all held in Germany) and impeccable Western clothing, Japan was attentive if not eager. _Japan's_ eyes never strayed, indeed, the normally dull brown vacuums seemed to _glint _as they caught every last detail, hoarding every last word or movement as an archaeologist would coins, to pore over later, and extract with scalpels and tweezers – fine, delicate instruments of torture – the clinical, harsh truths, the shadowed implications. _So this crown is gold, you say?_

For all his focus, though, Germany's sure that his furtive snatches of observation of the nation by his side doesn't go unnoticed. But Japan never does bring it up, and it's not like Germany can.

Times like that, Japan really does…not frighten, no, but _worry_ Germany.

Even now, when all three of them are sharing a picnic meal out in the dandelion-strewn meadows of Germany's extensive back garden, the golden disks of yellow petals a thousand reflections of the midday sun, Germany still feels a tiny sliver of unease swimming in his stomach.

Perhaps it's something to do with the fact that all their 'picnic' really was was three separate portions of food prepared individually by each of them, three plates on a checked red-and-white tablecloth that seemed too big, and too blank. Or perhaps it's because Japan (supposedly one for decorum) has actually taken his one-in-a-myriad variations of rice to a shaded spot under a tree, a little way away, to pick over with smooth, ebony chopsticks, knees folded neatly under him, and the tablecloth looks emptier than ever. It had kept fluttering in the breeze, with nothing to hold it down, no china dishes patterned with honeysuckle and ferns, heaped with tarts and doilies and crisp white triangles of cucumber sandwiches, and so Germany had pinned down three of its corners: pasta-plate in one, his own in another, and a half-empty glass of beer in the third.

It looks _stupid_, a miserable failure: no material for the cameras today, or perhaps too much. The last corner flaps wildly, like a swan suddenly finding its wings clipped. Germany sighed, pushed the thought of Japan watching him from the shadows away, and turned his attention to Italy.

Brown-haired, slender, lying languidly in all that green, fingers that wield paintbrushes in the place of spears laced behind his head, eyes closed in contentment. The sun shone feather-light on the arch of a cheek, and a bee skimmed low over the tip of his nose, then circled in and out of his stray curl, before moving on, a tiny speck that soon disappeared, taking its soft buzzing with it.

Relaxed enough to fall asleep. Meaning, then, that he was relaxed during training, before and during and after meetings, in the middle of a battlefield…really, _all _he seemed to do was sleep. That, and stuff himself on his beloved pizza and pasta, gazing dreamily out at passing girls. Not to mention all that clinging and hugging and crying. But primarily the sleeping.

That was the problem. Italy was still wrapped in thin, light, gauzy fantasies, still airborne on the Renaissance, even though those fine, white-marbled wings had long since flown off. Looking at him, you'd think that they'd taken him with them, willowy gondolas weaving through the pillars of stone palaces, for all he paid attention to the _war _going on around him.

The only exception to this was when Germany had all but bodily _dragged_ him onto the battlefield. And then_,_ _had _Italy run. Like all the hounds of Hell had manifested themselves into the form of a few rows of tanks. Or even just the one, and their own one at that.

So it was surprising, really, that barring his none-too-infrequent breaks (siestas, God _forbid_), and between those long periods of cringe-worthy cowardice and no less so affection, Italy really was quite adept at manufacturing them. Though he probably saw them more as thousands of metal-crafted slot-together creations, each a smooth-running assortment of skilfully-fitted…_what, _exactly, Germany didn't know and sure as Italy's slacking didn't have the idleness to think upon. But whatever it was, it wasn't the massed bulk of heavy, grinding, black-oiled war machinery.

Germany _would _know that. He'd tried to point them out as such to Italy a while back, and that lithe form had shrunk back, what was clearly a spasm of horror and revulsion clawing at him. And Germany had almost dared to hope that the dozy, carefree little nation finally understood. Had finally woken up, as it were.

Fat chance. All the incident had served to do was spur Italy on, not to be industrious, but to run all the faster. Right into Germany's arms, as if he were _trying _to knock him off-balance. It was all Prince Charming could do, to not throw him right back under the crushing wheels. Italy would understand. After all, he had been the one to so gleefully (so Germany 's heard, though he can't for the life of him imagine it) exercise that quaint tradition of kicking deserters, those miserable, deluded wretches, it would have been death both ways, didn't they know, didn't they at least want the more honourable one? to the snarling regiments of beasts. All so very hungry.

That would quite ruin the whole fairy-tale that _Italy _at least was living in. Prince Charming did not desert his damsel, much less heap coals (or tanks, for that matter) onto their head. He does imagine, though…

He wouldn't. He won't. But, to see him sprawled out _right there _and _sleeping_…

Italy shifts, sighs, and rolls over so he is resting on his side. His eyes flutter open, one of the rare times that they do, and they are like the first drops of fresh, uncorrupted resin that wells from reddish-brown barked trees, untouched saved for a secret glimmer of warm, soft sunlight, filtered through tender half-translucent butterfly wings, lilting tints of young green that tremble and sway high at the treetops. Where blue skies weaved lullabies in and out of the rainbow, where the rain was the dulcet pattering of melted lemon drops, and the chimney-tops were but red brick squares, from where they, Japan, Italy and he, would hold hands across the backs of blue birds.

In that instant, Germany hunches over on himself slightly, breath catching and quickening inexplicably, as if to make up for the blood that _curdles_ in his veins, coming to an abrupt stop, frozen without warning by shock, by the intensity of his _longing_. And he knows he can't hate Italy.

(_No, but tanks, decimating the stretch of woods Italy hid himself in, cracking the trees, smearing the no longer pure resin, damage, terrible, irreversible damage….)_

Italy watches him with clear, gentle, innocent eyes, and smiles.

_(….he hates him, he _hates_ him, for daring to dream.)_


	2. Pride

**A/N: Oh lookie, I actually updated.**

**-Inspired by a WWII documentary on Yesterday (heck they have a lot of those) I glimpsed 'bout ten minutes of. Japanese soldiers having to hand all their weapons to the Americans, and this included their samuri-spirit encapsulating swords. Despite being their most treasured possessions and works of art and all, because oh they were so dangerous and what if they all charged into World War Three holding aloft bits of metal? Which doesn't by all means speak of all of their attitudes. But, hhhhhhhhh.**

**But what kind of **_**pissed me off **_**was that it was filmed. **_**No.**_

**On that lovely note, enjoy.**

The Eight Deadly Sins

Pride

It is, as England would put it, with a wave of his hand at once appreciative and dismissive, a fine day.

And it _is_ fine, America reflects, stretching under the cornfield-gold sun that lolls high across the meridian, proud and powerful and _smug_ in its azure throne, if only for the fact that England _wasn't _here. He snorts to himself as he idly stamps out angular patterns with the thick soles of heavy lace-up boots, then scuffles them out again, yawning, flipping his eyes around the regiment of soldiers, all of whom, unlike him, had something to do.

He grins at the exasperated shaking of heads sent his way, returns thumbs-ups and quasi-sarcastic salutes, shrugs his jacket off. Too hot. It lands at his feet and instantly the dirt is up with a vengeance, clinging onto his boots and pant legs with a coating of brown: pulling a face, he swipes at them with his free hand, bundling the jacket under his arm with the other. New, damn the commander wasn't going to be happy.

Resolute, the dirt transferred itself firmly to his fingers, and _of course_ it had to be at that ignominious moment – bent double, uniform disordered and looking as if he had marched through all the savannas of Africa, hair rumpled and starting to stick with the heat – that the camera panned round. Rolling his eyes, he waved exaggeratedly, fluttering his hands as elaborately as he could – which was _quite_ elaborately, for the record, as it should be, for all the time he'd spent sniggering at England doing the same. Except England had been deadpan-_serious_. Ah, dear ol' England, the Pied Piper of inclement weather, wish you were here. Not.

The dust, determined not to lose, chose that moment to come unstuck in a last grand finale, and America serenades it with a fit of sneezing. He wipes watering eyes with a wrist, and throws a clot of dirt at the cameraperson, who is shaking with silent mirth. Oh what a fine day.

Fine, Japan's fingers were fine. As were the rest of his features: fine strands of no-longer-so-neat hair graze pale cheeks as he dips his head, and long, fine lashes shutter lowered eyes. And those fingers, those _fine_, small-boned and porcelain-skinned fingers, they twist and gouge at the starched green fabric atop the arms of the foldaway chair he's been allowed. Because they were gracious and he was not, to have wanted to watch the proceedings standing. And now he is making as if to rip the fabric and all of America with it, belying an indecent fury the rest of him so perfectly conceals. Disgraceful.

America doesn't really think so. Not when one by one, the uniform – a virtue to them, he knew, hand-in-hand with cleanliness and all manner of others, strange to him but observed so very scrupulously by they – lines of thrice-disgraced (to have, inconceivably, lost; to have done the unthinkable, surrendered; and now, horror upon horror afresh, this) soldiers are proffering their swords to the single American at the end of each. Step up, bow, hold out the offending armament (ah but what a crude, brutish word it was here, how it reeked of ignorance in face of these samuriswordsartworksfamilyheirlooms_souls_), step away, and the next: step up, stoop, hand over; step up, kowtow, have it taken; step up…

It's like watching fish. A little. The same face, Asian and browned by the sun, perhaps with a bruise to differentiate them, the same eyes, wide-open despite the intensity of the sun's glare, the same motions. But then again. Fish didn't expound to the very nuances of their misery just through feet that _didn't_ drag, hands that _didn't_ shake, and eyes that despair, that every so often look towards the camera (whereas the Americans, like him they _beam_), but didn't weep.

Shoulders are straight as they march away, smartly, years of discipline piled and pressed onto them with no way of lessening it save for absorbing it, until it seeped right through them, and leaden duty chills the blood and puts a stay on anything but itself. In theory. Actuality, mocking as ever, mocking as some of the astoundingly insensitive Americans watching from the side, pointed out with golden fingers that didn't they so tangibly _want_ to slump, drag themselves away, retreat to the sanctuary of the shadows and wear a shroud of darkness instead of the shame they were afraid might _snap_ them. Painfully _obvious_.

They had to make do with assuming a pride that nobody, least of all themselves, believe is there, because they've all seen it roughly grabbed and carelessly tossed into the pile of ever so prized, painstakingly nurtured, gleaming _trash_, to be waved off as cheap and worthless and easily dispensable, and burnt. And it doesn't stop there, because it's been immortalised in grainy black-and-white. So that the whole world may watch.

America shakes out his jacket, ducking his head to hide the frown that was all too inappropriate for when he should be savouring his victory. The view is better, a scramble of tramping boots was much less disconcerting than the sight before him. The odd pair of eyes, downcast, confused, still reeling, that sometimes come is way, too preoccupied to actually see him, but drawn to the dawdling, conspicuous figure all the same, is enough to discomfit him, a ripple of secondary humiliation that brings red to his cheeks with nothing to do with the scorching sun. If only they had not treasured their pride so to begin with, their fall needn't be so devastatingly steep.

His peripheral vision nudges him that Japan's fingers are still desperately clawing. Broken nails dig into delicate beds, and yet the frenzy neither flags nor ceases. America averts his eyes. From the suffering of his _friend_.

He looks up when he has to: there's only so much he can push it. He grins, perfunctorily, mouth gaping and feeling like waxwork that feared to melt, and yet no-one notices – he no longer enjoys the day. Even the most delectable of fruits soured under the sun, it seemed, and it just wasn't _fair_ that all his work, all that fighting, the hard-won victory – _his _labour, _his _victory – is turning out to be no different.

Yet another Japanese soldier steps up. Dizzy, and slightly nauseous (heat exhaustion?), he only notices because this one is stirring the cooling wisps of a _commotion_. _Resist, oh, resist and refuse to co-operate, refuse to relinquish your sword, curse us aloud, the more shockingly the better, don't just move along with the conveyer belt of clockwork dolls that do you so proud, make a commotion, stoke one up, so that at least we do not seem so much in the wrong. _

Angry shouts are sounding, harsh, commanding, domineering, and America winces: his head throbs, he's thirsty, it's all too loud to him. Other lines, not just the ones with the unruly Japanese, halt too, held up by curious American soldiers peering over one another's shoulders to see the spectacle. Perhaps write it home, a laughing postscript hurriedly squeezed in in the last gap at the bottom of the letter-paper. Whispers are passed round, whispers and sniggers, only a playground of boys after all: the top half of the soldier's sword is missing. They shake their heads and weigh their guns in their hands, compare it to the broken toy the immature child who just wouldn't accept defeat insisted on clinging to. (To be fair, not all were so callous – Davidson, frowning, not just against the sun, and his brother beside him, muttering, troubled.)

A head of black hair thrown back, and America catches a glimpse of fevered eyes that glitter hate and _pride_. Hands grip the ornate cherrywood hilt, hours and hours of craftsmanship; they angle against his stomach, making as if to punch the thing in. He leers, glances round at his fellowmen in something akin to scorn, readies himself.

America flinches away, all of a sudden wishing England here. Still he doesn't miss the cry, raw and angry and he could fancy the very shriek dripping crimson. But when he looks back, he can see a group of officers shoving the defeated-_again_ man away (because they were merciful, they'd let him live, with full knowledge of being thwarted of an honourable death), and when they disperse again, disgruntled, the ground is quite clear of blood. What he can't see, though, is the broken sword – just another in the pile of dirty metal.

Later, he hits a ramen-shop-turned-pub with a group of his friends – soldiers all, naturally – and they crow over being first to the corner, waving for drinks, happy to have won a war all by themselves. The Davidsons are quiet, but it makes no difference to the rest of them – boisterous, loud, slamming their glasses onto the smooth, aged dark wood tables, upsetting screens that fall and tear, laughing. Placing ridiculous bets on outrageous wagers. Dabbling with a spot of gambling. Boys will be boys.

Fingers drum to the singing – sometimes good, sometimes awful, and when it was they never failed to make this known – from beside the karaoke machine (bright, if not a little battered, plastic, gratingly Western against the subdued, refined shades of the ramen-shop-pub). Surprisingly musical, some of this lot, keeping the tempo along with the backing track as they deliberately choose mushy, unnaturally high songs that they croon, ridiculously, running hands oh-so-seductively through none-existent manes of luscious blond hair, blinking and pouting. Gales of appreciative laughter, taunts in good humour, joking.

All America can see is Japan's fingers, slender and fine and bleeding and quite, quite still.


End file.
